Gendering the Black Body: Race, Masculinity, and Violence in the First World War Era By: Edith Ritt-Coulter A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment requirements for the degree of MASTERS OF HISTORY University of Central Oklahoma 2018 1 Acknowledgments I first and foremost would like to thank my husband, DaVuante Coulter, for accompanying me while I searched in the archives for the stories of William Brown and Bert Smith. He is the best research assistant a wife could ask for. Most importantly, I would like to thank Dr. Lindsey Churchill and Dr. Marc Goulding for their insight and mentorship over the past years. The combination of both their efforts has immensely shaped my work as a scholar and my endeavors. Through the guidance of Dr. Erik Huneke, I strengthened my understanding of gender studies and because of his input I have become a better scholar. I would also like to thank Heidi Vaughn, she taught me how to present my work in a way that is palatable to readers, which is critical in the field of lynching studies. To my father, Richard Ritt, thank you for always challenging my ideas and pushing me to articulate my arguments better. My children, Ayden, Jocelyn, and Evelyn, thank you for always supporting my school work even when all you guys wanted was to play with mommy. I appreciate my families enduring support and patience. Finally, my thesis would not have been possible without the services and efforts of the staff at several institutions. Loren Blake and Dr. Jennifer Harbour played a critical role in the development of my research regarding William Brown. Thank you, Loren in particular, for sharing my passion for Will’s story. When research got tough it brought me comfort knowing someone else was digging to find the same story. Thank you to all of the staff at the Douglas County Archives, W. Dale Library, Nebraska State Archives, Sterling Ross Library, Harris County Clerk Archives, Harris County Archives, Gregory School, Houston Public Library, and the University of Houston Archives who helped me locate all of the source material used in this work. 3 Abstract This thesis examines the phenomena of lynching through the lens of gender and identity by exploring social constructions of black masculinity in the United States. The US lynching culture that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century specifically targeted black men based on notions of acceptable masculine behavior. Mainstream society characterized black masculinity as subservient to their white counterparts and restricted them into narrow ideas of gender performance. During the First World War, African American culture experienced a revitalization of political consciousness and identity, which challenged the hegemony of white men. Lynching became a tool to police liberated black masculine identity and to regulate the societal performance thereof. Using rarely utilized archival material, located in Omaha, Nebraska and Houston, Texas, this work studies the cases of Bert Smith and William Brown as examples of the physical manifestation gendered violence committed against African American men. Several key events contributed to the challenging of the established racial hierarchy including the Great Migration, African American military service, and the rise of Black Nationalist organizations. The significant cultural shift of this period created racial tension that was rooted in ideas of gender identity. I argue that the increase in lynchings during and after the First World War is the direct result perceived challenges to hegemonic white masculinity. Further, my work demonstrates that black acts of liberation were met with gendered violence in the form of lynching as an attempt to control African American men’s defiance of white notions of acceptable masculine behavior. My work contributes to the field of lynching studies because it goes beyond the established examination of African American men’s sexuality. My thesis adopts an intersectional approach through which historians can further dissect the influence of race, 4 gender, and identity on acts of violence committed against the black community in the United States. 5 “Gendering the Black Body: Race, Masculinity, and Violence in the First World War Era” Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………..7 Chapter one. Historiography……………………………………………………..11 Chapter two. Pursuing Manhood: African American Masculinity in the First World War Era…………………………………………………………………...31 Chapter three. I’ll Tell You What You Can’t Do: The Lynching of Bert Smith....45 Chapter four. What About Willie?……………………………………………….59 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..76 Appendix ……………………………………………………………………..…...80 Bibliography………………………………………………………………….…..84 6 Introduction In the fall of 2015, I started researching violence committed against African Americans in the US. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the murders of several people of color including Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and Sandra Bland inspired me examine the societal structures that allowed these events to occur. During my research for an undergraduate class, I stumbled across a 1919 article from the Omaha Daily Bee with the headline,” Black beast attacks white girl.” The news article intrigued me and subsequently led me to investigate the gendered terminology used by the Omaha Bee. I originally began examining the media’s perpetuation of negative stereotypes associated with African American men, but quickly realized that there was a deeper cultural phenomenon occurring, lynching. During the era of westward expansion in the US, communities attempted to control “undesirable” elements of society by using lynching and other forms of extralegal violence. Various populations of people fell victim to lynch mobs but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century this tactic was used specifically to incite fear among African Americans. Post- Civil War communities, particularly in the South, wanted to regain control over the actions of people of color. This led to the emergence of Jim Crow and the act of lynching became a violent policing mechanism. According the NAACP, between the dates of 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred. 3,446 of those acts of extralegal violence happened to black men and women. The discrepancy between the number of non-black victims and black victims of lynchings reveals a system of violence used to police the actions of people of color. The characterizations of lynching victims are heavily influenced by the white gaze, which often criminalizes them to validate their murders. White society’s perpetuation of negative representation of black identity 7 created a hostile environment for African Americans. The lynching of Bert Smith in Goosecreek, Texas in 1917 and of William Brown in Omaha, Nebraska in 1919 represent examples of innocent men being killed by lynch mobs. Their communities choose to ignore the humanity of Brown and Smith and in turn perpetuated false narratives regarding their character. After several years of immersing myself in the current scholarship regarding the history of lynching, I discovered a few explanations for the use of mob violence against African Americans. The most prominent reason given by society to validate the killing of black men was alleged assaults committed against white women. Previous historical analysis has overly scrutinized the sexual aspects of lynching and has ignored the role of gender performance and identity. The hyper-sexualized actions during lynching and the obsession with sexual misconduct are rooted in a larger gendered power dynamic between competing notions of masculinity. This reveals a racial hierarchy in the US that is defined by gender and race. The white-dominated social pyramid theoretically dictates what society views as an acceptable performance of one’s gender and race. My work contributes to the existing scholarship because it attempts to go beyond the “sexual assault” theory by examining the intersections of race, gender, and identity within the US lynching culture. This research adopts socialized body theories, gender performance theories, and power theories to expand upon existing lynching studies. This research includes several questions such as: What did society believe to be “respectable” black gender performance? How did the process of enslavement contribute to the development of US society’s perception of black gender identity? How does sexualized extralegal violence relate to black gender identity? Did the First World War era’s “fear of the armed black man” contribute to the lynching of William Brown and Bert Smith? What are the paradigms of power within the narratives of lynching? How did white society perform lynching? 8 What is the theoretical gendered black body? What do sexualized actions performed during lynching tell us about the intersections between race, gender, and the pursuit of power? What terminology did society use to describe black gender identity and the perceived “deviance” from acceptable behavior and what are the social impacts of gendered language? Through this scope of analysis I argue that African American men’s rejection of white ideas of acceptable black male gender performance resulted in lynching. Further, I assert that lynching is not only an act of violence but a fear tactic used to reinstate white notions of black masculinity and to stabilize the perceived racial hierarchy. The revitalization of black political consciousness and the social elements associated with First World War created several